Last week we celebrated Columbus Day. Some states don’t recognize the holiday under this name. Instead, they call it “Indigenous People’s Day” or “Native Americans’ Day”. For example, here is the proclamation by radical left-wing “Governor” Gavin Newsom of California: “Governor Newsom proclaims Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2024
SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today issued a proclamation declaring October 14, 2024, as “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”
PROCLAMATION
For the sixth year in a row, California proclaims today as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. In doing so, we reflect on the vibrant cultural diversity, and tenacity, of the Indigenous peoples who now call California home – including those who originate from and maintain deep relationships with these lands and waters, those who were relocated here from their sacred homelands by federal policies and those who have crossed oceans and borders with hope in the ability to find economic stability, community and safety in these lands of opportunity.
In recent years, we have experienced a global effort to disentangle the harmful legacies of historical violence and extraction and restore the beneficial legacies of Indigenous balance, sustainability and reciprocity. This includes a growing understanding of how the doctrine of discovery was called on historically to justify the expropriation of Indigenous lands and subjugation of Indigenous peoples, a legacy that has also been linked to the worsening of climate change and other environmental harms.
Increasingly, we are turning to Indigenous peoples in the existential imperative to restore balance, weather climate impacts and preserve biodiversity. This year alone, California followed the charge of the Klamath Basin tribes to complete the largest dam removal project in American history; welcomed native beaver, wolf and condor populations home; and enacted historic land access, return and stewardship mechanisms for Indigenous peoples. Later this month, California, along with leaders from across the globe, will meet to discuss the need to respect, preserve and maintain the knowledge, innovations and practices of Indigenous peoples in the race to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
As we look toward a future in which we continue to support these practices while also bolstering Indigenous language learning and revitalization, uplifting Indigenous sports in mainstream spaces, spotlighting Indigenous arts and infusing governance with Indigenous values, we are excited for the chance to demonstrate this work on the world stage at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Los Angeles boasts not only a rich community of the first people of those lands and waters, but also one of the largest populations of Native American people and diverse Indigenous immigrants alike. Further, for the first time in over 100 years, the games will include the Indigenous sport of lacrosse, offering an opportunity to showcase the Haudenosaunee athletes whose ancestors invented the game.
Today, as we are reminded of the forces of violence, displacement and oppression that tried and failed to eradicate Indigenous communities, I call on all Californians to find meaningful opportunities to uplift, validate and engage with Indigenous peoples and cultures on a global scale.
NOW THEREFORE I, GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim October 14, 2024, as “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”
IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 14th day of October 2024.
GAVIN NEWSOM
Governor of California
ATTEST:
SHIRLEY N. WEBER, Ph.D.
Secretary of State
Murray Rothbard didn’t agree. Writing in 1992, he said: “What was the Old Right’s position on culture? There was no particular position, because everyone was imbued with, and loved, the old culture. Culture was not an object of debate, either on the Old Right or, for that matter, anywhere else. Of course, they would have been horrified and incredulous at the accredited victimology that has rapidly taken over our culture. Anyone who would have suggested to an Old Rightist of 1950, for example, that in 40 years, the federal courts would be redrawing election districts all over the country so that Hispanics would be elected according to their quota in the population, would have been considered a fit candidate for the loony bin. As well he might. And while I’m on this topic, this is the year 1992, so I am tempted to say, repeat after me: COLUMBUS DISCOVERED AMERICA! Even though a fan of diversity, the only revisionism I will permit on this topic is whether Columbus discovered America, or whether it was Amerigo Vespucci. Poor Italian-Americans! They have never been able to make it to accredited victim status. The only thing they ever got was Columbus Day. And now, they’re trying to take it away!”
You might ask “Why does any of this matter? Who cares what name we give to a state holiday?” But it in fact matters a great deal. There is a plot by the left, supported by some but not all “native Americans,” that the land on which we live was stolen from the “indigenous people” and they are the rightful owners of the land we now live on and all we have built on it. They don’t want to kick us off our property, but they demand compensation, which could cost billions. If we don’t accept that we live here on sufferance, what can we do.
Here is where Murray Rothbard comes to our rescue. In his view, “native Americans” (AKA Indians) do have property rights, but only when they can show that their ancestors clear title to individually acquired property. Vague claims of “tribal rights” or “grazing rights” and the like do not suffice to establish title. In Volume 2 of his monumental Conceived in Liberty, he says about Indian property in Pennsylvania, “It must be recognized, however, that the bulk of Indian-claimed land was not settled and transformed by the Indians, and that, therefore, the Scots were at least justified in ignoring vague, abstract claims, whether by government or by Indian tribes, to the lands they knew that they were settling. Many of the Ulster Scots were squatters on frontier land. Lacking money to pay the prices asked by the feudal proprietary, they reasoned that they were entitled to own virgin land that they themselves had cleared and tilled. They needed no acquaintance with John Locke to sense that such land was their rightful property.”
For Rothbard, possession by an actual individual is essential. As he says in The Ethics of Liberty, “It is true that existing property titles must be scrutinized, but the resolution of the problem is much simpler than the question assumes. For remember always the basic principle: that all resources, all goods, in a state of no-ownership belong properly to the first person who finds and transforms them into a useful good (the “homestead” principle). We have seen this above in the case of unused land and natural resources: the first to find and mix his labor with them, to possess and use them, ‘produces’ them and becomes their legitimate property owner. Now suppose that Mr. Jones has a watch; if we cannot clearly show that Jones or his ancestors to the property title in the watch were criminals, then we must say that since Mr. Jones has been possessing and using it, that he is truly the legitimate and just property owner.
“Or, to put the case another way: if we do not know if Jones’s title to any given property is criminally-derived, then we may assume that this property was, at least momentarily in a state of no-ownership (since we are not sure about the original title), and therefore that the proper title of ownership reverted instantaneously to Jones as its “first” (i.e., current) possessor and user. In short, where we are not sure about a title but it cannot be clearly identified as criminally derived, then the title properly and legitimately reverts to its current possessor.
“But now suppose that a title to property is clearly identifiable as criminal, does this necessarily mean that the current possessor must give it up? No, not necessarily. For that depends on two considerations: (a) whether the victim (the property owner originally aggressed against) or his heirs are clearly identifiable and can now be found; or (b) whether or not the current possessor is himself the criminal who stole the property. Suppose, for example, that Jones possesses a watch, and that we can clearly show that Jones’s title is originally criminal, either because (1) his ancestor stole it, or (2) because he or his ancestor purchased it from a thief (whether wittingly or unwittingly is immaterial here). Now, if we can identify and find the victim or his heir, then it is clear that Jones’s title to the watch is totally invalid, and that it must promptly revert to its true and legitimate owner. Thus, if Jones inherited or purchased the watch from a man who stole it from Smith, and if Smith or the heir to his estate can be found, then the title to the watch properly reverts immediately back to Smith or his descendants, without compensation to the existing possessor of the criminally derived “title.” Thus, if a current title to property is criminal in origin, and the victim or his heir can be found, then the title should immediately revert to the latter.”
The implications for the Indian question are straightforward. Namely: In the extremely unlikely event that any particular Indian can show that he personally is the rightful heir of a particular Indian who was wrongfully dispossessed of a particular piece of property, the current occupants should hand him the keys to his birthright and vacate the premises. Otherwise the current occupants have the morally strongest claim to their property, and the status quo should continue. Anything more is just the doctrine of collective guilt masquerading as a defense of property rights.
Let’s do everything we can to defeat the left-wing claim that most of our land belongs to Indian tribes. As a good first step, let’s join Rothbard in celebrating Columbus Day. Let’s reject the Left’s tendentious substitute names.
